MadameBastet-firing-neurons

MadameBastet-firing-neurons
It's almost 1am on Sunday morning
and I'm sitting here so pissed off I can barely type.
I have just one question, one tiny question:

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH AMERICA???????

I mean, besides the triumvirate of Pure Evil that currently
works out of 1600...perhaps I should rephrase the question:

Why can't *anyone* in this fucking country do their job correctly?
Now before I go off on a rant sounding supercilious, smug and self-righteous,
let me be the first to state I am human, and of course I too make mistakes.
But I do my job, I go to school, I do my work, I do what's asked of me. I try very, very hard to do whatever job I have correctly.
Is it me? Am I crazy? I swear to whatever exists in this ass-backward universe that I spend at least 1/3 of my time rectifying other people's mistakes.

Cases in point:

1) I have recevied one letter from the IRS telling me I owe them $700.
I have now also received one letter from the Social Security Administration telling me my last name does not match up with my social security number.

HOW IN THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN? The IRS told me their 'system' (is this a machine system, or a human system?) has somehow split my last time into two parts. One part of me owes them nothing. The other part of me owes them $700 and is now in trouble with the Social Security Administration. I'll probably be put on some freakin' list now at the airport.

I have had the SAME mother****** last name for 39 years and 31 days! I have not married! I have not changed it! I have been filing tax returns for 20 years with the same last name! ARE YOU PEOPLE SMOKING CRACK????? Put the PIPES DOWN and DO YOUR JOBS!

2)Mail delivery. Oh this is a favourite of mine. Yes, the question here is not why postal workers go 'postal' - but why more people don't go postal on their mail carriers. Today I opened my door to find a bag of mail hanging from it. Why? Where did it come from? Did someone leave it there? Was an entire day's worth of my mail stuck in someone else's box? Because I got my mail in my box today! I have lost more mail, and have had more mail NOT GET TO ME because of the major incompetence of postal carriers. I wish I had a killer dog.

3) Bills - specifically, medical. Ok. I have been billed $84.32 TWICE in a week from the SAME hospital - even AFTER they received my check for said amount and cashed it. I've also just received a bill for $12.00 for a chest x-ray from another hospital and I have NO IDEA WHY. Check your records you morons - the CHECK CASHED! STOP SENDING ME THE SAME BILL EVERY 30 SECONDS!!!!

4) Banks. Oh god. Where do I begin? Once I ordered checks from the bank and they sent box after box after box after box with the wrong design. Why did I keep insisting they send me the right box - I mean, who cares about a stupid design right? I really didn't but it became very quickly a matter of principle I guess. And I am a Taurus. I can outwait anyone. I wanted them to pay and pay and pay and pay for the wasted checks until they got it right. It wasn't freakin' brain surgery.

5)Florists. I must have the worst luck in the world with these people. Whether I use florists in town, or online, they NEVER get the order right. The flowers look like crap, or it's the wrong arrangement, or they're sent on the wrong DAY, too late, too early - I have given up on flowers. Or they arrive half dead. Just pick a weed and know I love you.

6) The cable company. Every.Single.Month. My.Bill.Is.Different. I mean, apparently I don't have any set rate for my cable. Every time I call and try to get them to explain to me what the hell they're doing, they start speaking Greek. We finally settle on a number, and then the next month I'm paying $120, the month after that, $65, the month after that $95. What? Do they just pick a number out of their asses and give it to me? ALL for the same cable every month.

7) Academia. Oh my sweet Lord, where do I begin on this one. I've spent the majority of my life either as a student or a teacher in schools. I've been on both sides of the podium. And both sides pretty much suck, but I gotta say, no one entity could be more screwed up and bitter than the administration at colleges. They hate the faculty. I mean, HATE. They hate the students. They probably hate their miserable little lives. When I worked at two colleges as an instructor, I spent more time correcting the mistakes that the administrators made than I EVER DID CORRECTING MY STUDENTS. These people are one step away from monkeys. Or how about being a student? Just last week, I call the school, they tell me my class is in one building. I get there, and by the grace of God, run into other lost people, because, as it turns out, the class was moved to an entirely different building in a different classroom. So I spent 20 minutes in one building, looking for a room that didn't exist. NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL US THE CLASS HAD BEEN MOVED. It was a miracle we found it.

8) Pharmacies: Inevitably, I also have bad luck with pharmacies. As I have fibromyalgia, I'm on a few medicines, so I have to interact with these people on a monthly basis. I can't count the times I've been given the WRONG pills. Hello! This could kill someone! Like me! Or how about they don't even HAVE the medication in stock? Or they give you a few pills until they get the medication in, and you run out because it's been a week, but they still don't have the medication, and they REFUSE TO TRANSFER YOUR PRESCRIPTION so you can get your medicine!

9) Mechanics: Well, right off the bat I'm screwed here because I'm a woman. So I try really hard to know what's wrong with my car, and to find out how much it SHOULD cost. And yet, how many times have I picked up my car, driven 25 feet and found THE VERY PROBLEM I TOOK IT IN FOR WAS STILL THERE!

10) Dry cleaners. Again, this problem really seems to follow me more than others. AM I CURSED? I took a beautiful green silk skirt to the dry cleaners last year, and someone stole it. At the dry cleaners. Naturally, the owners would not admit this. They wouldn't admit they lost it. They tried to insinuate that I never brought it in. I am not insane. I wanted that skirt dry-cleaned for my brother's wedding. I BROUGHT IT IN. I tossed my house upside down and inside out three times looking for it and even looked IN THE OVEN for the skirt. It was gone. Somehow, my clothes disappear, buttons break, and things generally look worse when I get them back from the drycleaners. I have tried different ones, believe me. THIEVING BASTARDS! I'll never get over that skirt. I LOVED THAT SKIRT! It was a thing of beauty.

11)Doctors. After 12 1/2 years of being in the medical mill, I have nothing kind to say about doctors except that yes, they are a necessary evil. I have met doctors who are so stunningly arrogant, smug, nasty, mean, dismissive and downright fuckin' nuts that the only thing I can wish for them is Karma. I wish they could experience the pain of the patients they so easily dismiss. Doctors are treated like Gods here. They make you wait obscene amounts of time, shove you in a cold examining room, make you wear a napkin and sit there like an idiot for an even more obscene amount of time, before they come in, don't listen to you, and then leave.

I could go ON and ON and ON and ON...as I said, of course I make mistakes, but it seems to people like this country is truly falling apart. Why? No one seems to take pride in their work. No one can communicate, especially in California, and if you think that's racist, it's REALISTIC. Come live in Los Angeles for a while. Why is it racist to want everyone to speak ONE common language so we can all communicate for business purposes? No one seems to care. Corporations are so huge now that customer service is a quaint thing of the past. Go on, complain. Call the manager, write a letter. No one gives a shit. They don't care if they lose you as a customer because there are 10 more schmucks behind you ready to take your place.

How do you fight the post office? Oh I can't wait to call Social Security on Tuesday. They sent me a form. They want me to prove I'm me. It's genius. I guess I have to send them, what? A copy of my social security card? Shouldn't they have that on file? Should I just explain, look, I've been me since 1967. These are my numbers, this is my name. It hasn't changed. I'm not two people. I'm one person, the same person, I'm me. And me doesn't owe the IRS shit.
I have just one thing to say to them: You turn me back into ONE person, with ONE name or the Evil Half of Me is going to make your lives a living hell.

Now that's something I promise I'll make good on.

And these are just tiny, fairly inconsequential mistakes, I realize that. What about hurricane Katrina? My God in Heaven, was that the biggest disaster ever? Or people who are 'accidentally' killed in hospitals...given the wrong drugs, wrong limbs being cut off...or, how about, oops, we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, but hey, the war's on now, so we can't stop...I could go on and on. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

Or maybe this country has gotten worse. Sadly, I honestly think it's the latter.